I’m home sick from work on a gorgeous Northwestern Spring day (I can hear lawnmowers for miles around as the grass is growing taller by the minute and I can practically hear the rhododendrons opening larger and larger) and of all of the many actions I want to take to inform my elected officials that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, the one action I took is this one: I let my senator (Patty Murray, D-WA, who sits on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, where the bill will next be heard) know that I want height and weight added to the The Safe Schools Improvement Act of 2010.

Currently, although it’s a great bill in many respects, the legislation does NOT include weight and height as part of its anti-bullying protections. I can’t fathom why, as multiple studies have shown that fatness makes children a target for bullying. I was certainly singled out for being chronically bullied in elementary school because of both being shorter and fatter than the other kids.

So, with all of the things I care about, why did I take action on this one? In part, it’s because my senator sits on the committee. I know we are “aligned” on many issues (such as women’s health, abortion and family planning) but I don’t know if this is on her radar.